The Third Experiment
by jessica-m-99
Summary: What if the Maximoffs weren't the only survivors of Strucker's experiments? A young girl who had been best friends with the Maxmoffs since she was a kid ends up being his third survivor, and when Ultron comes to call on the trio, she feels a deeper connection with his ideals than anyone can understand.
1. Prologue: Out of the Frying Pan

The smoke and dust entwined dancing together as the chaos of the search party flooded the street, and in the distance, bombs landing echoed throughout Sokovia.

Two bodies had been uncovered in the rubble of what was once a beautiful large home, looming over the other much smaller houses along the street.

What had once been the best place to play and laugh with friends had been reduced to nothing but rubble with one large missile in the center of it all, threatening to tear apart what was already destroyed.

Avalynn Lackova clung desperately to her antsy daughter, praying that she wouldn't lose the little girl in the blind madness of the final search day.

The officials had announced, their voices calming the storm of frantic friends and relatives hoping to find the two young twins still trapped inside the debris, that today was the last day they would be searching.

Nobody could argue, there was a war waging around them. The officials couldn't spend all their time for two ten-year-olds stuck in the rubble of their own home.

However, to the young Lackova squirming in her mother's arms, that was worse than hearing her own home had been destroyed.

Clio Lackova had been best friends with the Maximoffs since they were toddlers. They clung to each other's hands as they took their first steps, Clio went to her first day of school with their family, when Clio ran away from home, she ran straight across the street to their home and hid under Wanda Maximoff's bed when her mother came looking for her.

They were closer than any of their parents thought possible. They never did a thing without each other, so when Clio got the news that the two people she cared for most in the world might be dead, her world began to crumble away from her.

All that mattered was the debris of the home she had roamed freely growing up and the bodies that were uncovered.

Each second lasted an hour as Clio desperately watched the men in heavy suits kicking and tossing the foundations of her childhood away as if they were simple stones, easy to kick about and emotionless.

She felt her heart shattering as she watched the careless and almost sinful actions being committed by the people who were supposed to save the lives of her best friends.

Her mother hugged her tightly and each breath from the ten-year-old came labored as she awaited the news that they had found the bodies.

She didn't believe any other news was possible until one of the men announced that he might have found something under Pietro's bed.

Clio's heart stopped and with the force of an adult man, she shoved her mother away and bolted towards the house while her mother desperately cried after her child.

The man pulled out a hand and Clio could feel each second dragging on as if deliberately attempting to torture the young girl as much as possible.

It was only when the living body of Wanda Maximoff was pulled out of the ashes did Clio Lackova break down in tears of joy.

Ignoring all orders to cease, Clio jumped to Wanda and Wanda's eyes widened when she spotted Clio.

The brunette was wrapped in a dark blanket as they searched for Pietro, but all Wanda could see was the face of Clio Lackova.

It felt like ages since she had seen a face other than that of her dead parents and Pietro. Seeing her best friend made Wanda feel like the weight of the world was being lifted off her shoulders.

The girls immediately ran into a hug and clung to each other as if there was no one else in the world around them.

Soon, Wanda melted into a mess of tears and without hesitation, the ten-year-old took responsibility in comforting her.

Other adults tried to help the young Maximoff, but Wanda needed nothing more than the comfort and knowledge that her best friend would pull her out of the mess her life had crashed into.

Soon enough, they pulled out Pietro and wrapped him in a blanket. He darted to the two girls and the trio embraced in a group hug.

Time faded away as they stood there together, relishing in comfort that they had not felt for days.

The three ten-year-olds had to grow up so fast in the midst of the war, but this had just shoved them into adulthood. They deserved innocence, playing games and giggling about having crushes at school, and yet that was what they had received.

Clio did not ask her mother's permission before accompanying her friends to the hospital and her mother did not yell when she brought the twins home and told them they could live with her as long as they needed.

They deserved far more than they got, but no matter how bad their life had been, how brutal the war had been, they had each other for comfort.

Adults were too busy with the war, either serving as soldiers, rebelling, or fighting to stay safe. The kids of Sokovia had nobody but each other to understand and survive the battle.

So when Wanda and Pietro were each awoken by nightmares, Clio was the one to help them while her mother was out rebelling the war until the early hours of the morning.

They didn't mind. It was their life. They didn't know anything outside of it.

Which was exactly why in seven years, all three of them would fight for that peace they had never seen.

They would rebel against the war and rebel against the many deaths that it had created, including Clio's mother when she was just fifteen.

However, as they rebelled they would all find they were heavily outmatched and, desperate for a way to end the war, would turn to a man called Strucker who promised they would become the greatest soldiers Sokovia had ever seen.


	2. The Day the Alarms Went Off

**A/N: I forgot to mention it last chapter but I do not own any characters, plotlines, or dialogue originally found in the movies or comics. All original characters, plots, or dialogue are mine.**

 **Also I am guessing at the age and time they were in Hydra as the comics do not have them in Hydra and the movies don't go into a lot of detail as to why (other than volunteering) they were there. So a lot of the Maximoff plot as it pertains to the movies will be speculation.**

* * *

The energy danced across her fingertips and she felt transfixed by the beautiful lights. Against the wall to her left, her lifelong friend Pietro Maximoff was still running into the walls uncontrollably.

It had been nine years since the two twins were pulled out of the wreckage of their homes, and they currently sat in the cells of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker who had cursed them with inhuman powers in an attempt to make them greater soldiers.

They were hardly ever let out of those cells.

Each passing hour dragged on slowly as Strucker forced them to practice their powers and hone in on the skills he burned into their young bodies.

However, that all changed the day the alarms went off.

No one had ever managed to find the base that had been their home for three years.

Nobody.

It was invisible to the naked eye.

So, when an enemy group had somehow managed to both locate and threaten the facility, it had chilled everyone to their very core.

The trio was released and granted clothes in the hopes that if the enemies did reach the building, they would be seen as workers and not human experiments.

However, that wasn't enough.

Strucker was pulling out all his forces. Every ally he had and tossing them on these enemies.

"The Avengers," he called them in his thick German accent.

Nevertheless, these iron gods persevered, tearing down Strucker's defenses without any trouble.

It both scared and fascinated Clio Lackova. For three years she had thought Strucker to be an immortal god, untouchable and certainly unreachable, but somehow in just a few short hours, the Avengers had managed to scare Strucker and send the alarms blaring without even reaching the facility.

Clio, Pietro, and Wanda all stood shakily watching Strucker as he stormed through the lab, ordering his forces to do everything in their power to stop the Avengers.

"What do we do?" Clio mumbled.

"Nothing," Pietro shrugged. "Strucker is in charge. He must do something."

"But Pietro this place has been our home," Wanda reasoned. "If these Avengers take it away, what will happen to us?" She wondered.

"She does have a point," Clio nodded.

"No, she doesn't," Pietro snapped. "We must stay."

"Alright, if you will not go, Clio and I will," Wanda said, crossing her arms and glaring at her twin brother.

"No you will not," Pietro said, clenching his jaw.

"Who will stop us?" Wanda smirked and Pietro's eyes widened. He glanced desperately at his sister and Clio, but Clio just granted him a sympathetic look.

Pietro sighed. "Alright," he grumbled. "We will go."

"We will not yield!" Strucker cried. "The Americans sent their circus freaks to test us. We will send them back in bags," he turned around and faced his soldiers. "No surrender!" He roared.

"No surrender!" They all chorused back to their lord and master.

The little display of burning testosterone granted Pietro plenty of time to grab the girls and bolt into the woods, leaving the facility unnoticed.

Clio took a deep breath as Pietro placed her down on the ground. She had not felt the fresh wind on her face for three years. It was beautiful.

It felt like the cool atmosphere was gracing her skin cautiously, attempting to learn the new body she set forth. All the new blood cells and added electricity coursing through her body.

Her bright yellow leather jacket, white crop top and ripped blue jeans exposed her to the cold forest and soon sent her shivering as she clung to the jacket desperately.

Pietro wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her arms in an attempt to warm her up, causing her to smile softly at him.

Wanda scowled at the pair and cleared her throat. "Where are they?"

Pietro frowned and glanced around. They all listened carefully as if awaiting someone to shout out and scream, "Hey, I'm an Avenger!"

Soon enough they heard a loud explosion and Pietro sent a small smile towards Clio before racing off towards the deafening sound.

"What was that?" Wanda asked.

"What?" Clio retorted, her smile fading as she looked up at Wanda.

"You and Pietro, you-," she began and Clio frowned.

"You cannot be serious," Clio sighed. "I was in the cell next to him, Wanda. I heard him screaming?" She reminded the young girl. "I used to talk to him through the walls when he had nightmares."

"You did?" Wanda frowned.

Clio shrugged. "I just wanted to help him. It's not exactly nice hearing your best friend scream through your wall each and every night."

Clio heard another loud explosion and her eyes widened. "I'll go and make sure he is okay," she said, starting to take off into a run.

"Wait!" Wanda called. "What do I do?!"

"Head back to the facility! Make sure they do not arrest Strucker!" Clio cried before darting off to the source of the explosion.

Before she could find Pietro, she spotted a man with a red, white and blue shield and gear mirroring the same colors.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed softly. Americans.

Clio twisted her hand fluidly, allowing her fingers to begin glowing and sparking with electricity.

She placed her hands together and when she pulled them apart a long stream of electricity that looked a lot like dozens of lightning bolts strung together came out of her hands. She shoved the electricity towards the American roughly, shocking him and scorching his shoulder as he fell to the ground, crying out in pain.

Clio smirked and wiped her hands, proud of her work as the man began to scramble up.

Before she could try to hit him again, a flash of blue grabbed her waist and sped off in the opposite direction.

Little did they know, the star spangled man had seen the pair of them.

"We have two enhanced in the field. One produces some form of electricity," Steve Rogers announced to his friends through the comms unit in his ear. He fingered the wound the girl had created and winced as it started to heal. "The other is fast. Extremely fast," he sighed, frowning at the spot they had once inhabited.

Who were those kids?


	3. We're Not At War

"That was reckless!" Pietro exclaimed.

"No, that was smart," Clio insisted. "He didn't even see it coming," she laughed.

"Yes, but he could have hurt you while you were basking in this glory," Pietro warned.

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "He is an old man in a young body. He acts older than he is."

"Clio," he sighed and she rolled her eyes.

"Why are you so worried? I did not see you doing this with Wanda," Clio reminded him and he froze.

"Never mind that. Where is she anyway?"

"Back in the facility, I told her she should make sure none of the Avengers reach Strucker," Clio said and Pietro nodded, raking his fingers through his hair.

"See there it is again!" Clio exclaimed. "You show concern with me but not her. Why?" She wondered.

"Forget it," Pietro shook his head. "We must get back to her. Do you know where in the building she may be?"

"Either with Strucker or an Avenger I suppose," Clio shrugged and Pietro nodded once again.

"Come on" he instructed. He picked Clio up bridal style and the pair sped into the building.

They stopped and Pietro dropped Clio, panting from the sheer amount of running. He had not done that much running in one day since he received his powers, it was brutal, especially when you had to carry someone in your arms whilst doing it.

"Pietro," Clio whispered. "There she is," she said, pointing to the brunette slyly trailing a man with dark hair who was walking cautiously into one of the many secret doors Strucker held throughout the base.

Pietro took a deep breath and Clio frowned at him. "Do you need a minute?"

He nodded and she smiled softly. She rubbed his back and calmed him down as he took slow, shallow breaths.

Eventually, he regained some strength and nodded to Clio. She grinned and hopped in his arms before the pair followed his sister into the secret room, dissolving into nothing but a blur of blue and yellow as they raced through the hallway leading to a huge room.

It was so huge in fact, that Clio began to wonder how it had been at the facility for three years without her noticing.

It looked like a world on its own with ashy skies and artifacts that appeared as though they were plucked from another world and tossed onto the planet Earth.

They reached Wanda and Pietro skidded to a stop.

They both spotted the dark haired Avenger and started to march towards him when Wanda placed one hand on each of their chests. They both shot her looks of utter befuddlement.

The dark haired man had a crazed look in his eyes as he took a few steps backward and Clio frowned at Wanda.

"You better know what you are doing," Clio warned in a whisper.

"Trust me," Wanda mumbled.

The dark haired man stretched out his hand and a fist of iron wrapped around it. Pietro sighed in irritation. His sister was the one that had convinced them to fight and now she was allowing this strange man to steal the object that had granted them their powers?

"You're just gonna let them take it?" Pietro said and Wanda rolled her eyes.

"Trust me, Pietro."

Wanda grinned at the man as he marched towards the scepter and Clio and Pietro shared looks of utter dread as their stomachs knotted tightly.

He grabbed the scepter like some sort of untouchable superhero. He stormed out of the room, talking to some unseen people and Clio turned to Wanda with her hands on her hips.

"What the hell was that? Why did you let him take it? Strucker will kill us," Clio reminded her best friend.

"He will never know," Wanda promised. "And that man," she hesitated, glancing back to the spot he had vacated with glowing red eyes. "He has fears that are so great, they may each him alive. It will destroy him and the scepter will be lost to the Avengers. Besides, even if he did not have great fears, we are not ones to attack people when they are afraid, even if he was not bound to self destruct, we are not the type to hurt people when they are afraid. We are not Hydra," she reminded them. "We just volunteered to be experimented on by him."

"And they trapped us here long enough to try and make us like them," Clio mumbled bitterly. "But nevertheless, why are we sparing any of the Avengers for some distant hope that he might combust?" She wondered.

"Because that man is Tony Stark," Wanda muttered.

Clio was fairly certain her heart had stopped at the same time as Pietro's because when she looked up at him, she could almost feel the heart sinking feeling that she knew he was experiencing.

"That _murderer_ is an Avenger?" Clio said.

Wanda nodded and Clio sighed, raking her fingers through her short brown hair. "Okay, we will do this your way. We will see him tear the Avengers apart, but until then, you mentioned something about Strucker never discovering this? What did you mean?" Clio wondered.

"Oh," Wanda nodded. "We must go."

"What?!" Pietro and Clio exclaimed and Wanda jumped back in alarm. She had not expected the pair to seem so surprised by the idea.

"When I looked into Stark's mind I saw more than just his fears. I saw what is happening in the world. Sokovia still stands. We can go back home."

"Like this?" Pietro scoffed, gesturing to his body. They had all agreed on one this when it came to the powers, they should never show them to their childhood friends. While the powers may help in the war, their family and friends would look at them as mutated freaks.

"Do we have another choice?" Wanda asked and neither of them met her gaze.

They didn't want to admit that she was right. That they had to face the music and admit to their family what they had done, whether they liked it or not.

* * *

"What's the word on Strucker?" Steve asked Maria Hill, Stark's assistant and former Agent of Shield.

"Nato's got him," she announced.

"And the three enhanced?" He prompted.

"Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, and Clio Lackova. Twins and close friend," she handed them a tablet with a video of the trio shouting and rebelling against the war.

They screamed nasty and vicious words at the armies but their voices were lost amongst the chaos of the large crowd around them.

Steve noticed from the video that Pietro had a tight arm around Clio. Every time he gazed at the younger girl, it screamed all the words he wished he had the guts to say to her.

Steve smirked, he remembered glancing at Peggy with that same gaze awhile back. It was nice to see that something's never change.

The trio all had brown hair at the time, Pietro's being the only one to change with the repetitive experiments and newfound powers.

They seemed to be as close as ever in the video, bonded through years of shared pain and suffering.

"The twins were orphaned at ten when a shell collapsed their apartment building," Maria announced and Steve swiped to the left to find a heartbreaking image of a once tall apartment building reduced to nothing more than rubble and ashes. Outside the building there was a small figure staring at the mess, frozen in place as if she were transfixed by the sheer destruction she was witnessing so young. Steve assumed that young girl was none other than Clio Lackova, desperately awaiting the return of her best friends.

"Clio was orphaned at fifteen, when, after her dad passed away while fighting in the army," Maria said, and Steve swiped left again to see the credentials of an army man. Myrick Lackova. Died in battle. "Her mother," Stev swiped left and found an image of a beautiful woman with long brown hair and dirt spread across her face, screaming with rebels much like her daughter did just a year later. "Was killed in an attack against the rebel groups by the Sokovian government."

Maria and Steve marched out of the plane as Steve continued to grow interested in the lives of the children and Sokovia itself.

"Sokovia's had a rough history," Maria sighed. "It's nowhere special, but it's on the way to everywhere special."

"Their abilities?" Steve prompted.

"He's got increased metabolism, and improved thermal homeostasis similar to Clio who also has neuro electric interfacing and Wanda has telekinesis, mental manipulation," Maria explained and froze when she saw Steve's raised eyebrow.

He was finding it much too difficult to keep up with the complicated, rapid, scientific explanation and Maria noticed. She sighed.

"He's fast and they're weird," Maria simplified and Steve nodded, casting one last apprehensive glance at the image of the kids on the screen.

He felt an odd connection to all three of them but knew they all had it far worse than he ever did during the war. Compared to them, his life was a cakewalk and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt at that.

"Well, they're gonna show up again," Steve decided with a sigh. He didn't want to hurt the kids, but he had a feeling that was what it was going to come to, and he dreaded it.

"Agreed," Maria nodded as the elevator dinged and Steve stepped inside. "File says they all volunteered for Strucker's experiments. It's nuts," she told Steve as he clicked the button to go up another floor.

He chuckled and smirked as he turned to Maria. "Right," he nodded. "What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?" He said sarcastically.

Maria rolled her eyes, still standing by her opinion. "We're not at war, Captain," she reminded him.

Steve maintained his cocky, delightful expression as the doors of the elevator began to close. "They are," he stated simply and the doors slammed shut in Maria's face.


End file.
